If you went out and bought a BMW 3 Series today, it would be a different beast to the car launched by the German automaker in 1975. The same applies to German press maker Manroland with this overhaul of its venerable warhorse, the 700, first shown at Drupa 1990. The HS model has been given the Spinal Tap treatment – it has been ‘turned up to 11’ to offer a production speed of 18,000sph. That’s one sheet every fifth of a second.
Packaging is part of the equation. Manroland Australasia’s Simon FitzGerald says: “One of the areas that has been slightly buffered from the GFC is packaging. In fact it has been growing. So if a printer can invest in press technology to produce high-quality packaging at the right hourly rate to compete and can also produce commercial high-quality bread-and-butter print, then that’s a good decision.”
Meanwhile, rival suppliers have raised their eyebrows at the impressions-per-hour hike, which puts the 700 into the same speed league as KBA’s Rapida 106 and Heidelberg’s Speedmaster XL 105. These are both newer models that have been designed from the ground up to take account of the technical challenges involved in moving sheets at that speed, as well as the inherent mechanical stresses and strains in doing so.
Speaking to ProPrint’s UK sister title PrintWeek, Heidelberg UK product manager for B1 Gernot Keller said: “You have to look at all the aspects to compensate for mechanical shocks and vibration – there’s more to it than just putting on a new motor.” KBA UK managing director Christian Knapp told PrintWeek: “There is a reason why the previous generation of B1 presses don’t go faster than they do. Both Heidelberg and KBA spent serious money developing their new machines.”
Unsurprisingly, Manroland has little truck with talk that the HiPrint HS print speed is pushing the press too far. And, of course, it’s perfectly reasonable for any manufacturer to want to maximise its R&D investment in a machine type through as many variants as possible.
Along with the original 700, those variants include the 700 HiPrint, which offers upgraded logistic in the feeder and delivery, as well as the 700 Direct Drive, with the range’s fastest makeready times. FitzGerald says the new HS draws on technology from both these machines. Although the HS doesn’t have independently driven printing units, it does use some of the Direct Drive’s know-how in terms of speed of operation.
“It’s based on the Direct Drive frame and uses the same delivery, so it’s happy to be operating at 18,000sph,” affirms FitzGerald.
“We’ve actually upgraded the feeder and the delivery for speed and longevity,” he adds. “The feeder pile goes up in smaller, smoother increments and the delivery pile comes down twice as fast.”
Although ever-faster makereadies have been a hot topic of late, in the case of the 700 HiPrint HS, Manroland is taking something of a different tack. It has identified a demand among some customers for a machine that will eat up longer runs, and where speed of makeready is perhaps less of a priority. Packaging printers, this means you.
Use by date
FitzGerald points to the fact that many Australian printers typically push presses past what would be their use-by date in overseas markets.
“Not only does this press give them 10% more output than an equivalent press in this range, but if you look at presses six to seven years old – modern press design and modern press speed is 30% more productive.
“In Australia, we have quite a few packaging customers that commonly print 150,000 to 200,000 sheets in a job. So with anyone’s 10-year-old technology, they would be running between 10,000 and 12,000 sheets per hour, even if the press was spec’d higher than that when it was released. To be able to run now at 18,000 sheets per hour is a massive difference,” adds FitzGerald.
That said, the HS is no makeready slouch and various QuickChange options, such as air, wash-up, and ink change are available for tightening up on makeready speeds for those that require it. Features like the QuickChange Clamps means blanket or plate changes take a couple of minutes, rather than 10 or 15. FitzGerald says: “Even though this is a longer-run press, we are still doing full makereadies in 15 minutes, which is pretty quick.”
QuickStart press control is also standard on the press. This reduces waste after printing has been stopped and then restarted, by accelerating the press to production speed to achieve near-normal inking before engaging the feeder.
However, Manroland’s real focus is on selling the value-added aspects of the press. The vendor singles out features such as QuickChange Colour whereby the ink flow can be redirected from the back rollers in the ink train to the front if a particular job requires it. “You can control the flow of ink depending on what you’re printing,” explains FitzGerald. “I’ve seen customers using rival presses that don’t control the ink very well, and they have to spend a lot of time arranging things on the sheet in a certain way in order to compensate.”
Colour quality
InlineColorPilot, Manroland’s colour control and measurement system, has also been integrated with the model.
Versatility in substrate handling is one of the key features. Like other models in the 700 range, the HiPrint HS can handle lightweight paper from 0.04mm through to PVC foils and board of 1mm thickness. The manufacturer claims that whether the press is printing the thinnest or thickest stock in its range, it will still print at 18,000sph, and no doubt this is something that any printer considering the new model will be keen to put to the test. When in perfecting mode this maximum thickness falls to 0.6mm, and the speed drops to 13,200sph.
The sheet size is also larger than the standard 700 range, at 740×1,050mm, which allows printers producing work such as packaging and labels a few precious extra millimetres to increase the number of items that can be batched up. And for those requiring UV, FitzGerald says there is “plenty of room” between the printing units for interdeck driers.
There’s no doubt that in this market Manroland is taking on some formidable competitors, and in that respect FitzGerald highlights a couple of unique selling points beyond the bells and whistles of the press itself. He describes the TelePresence remote diagnostic tool as “fantastic”, offering 24-hour support and the ability for Manroland’s engineers to dial into any particular press and see what’s happening.
The accompanying Maintenance Manager software provides a schedule of required maintenance and guides the operator through what has to be done, and when, for each particular task, and the tools needed to carry it out. “You can set authorisations in it, too, for management so it’s very useful from a press room manager’s point-of-view,” he notes.
Another feature for added-value printing is Manroland’s on-press foiling system the Roland InlineFoiler Prindor. This was spec’d out on one of the manufacturer’s most high-profile local installations of recent times; Sydney-based packaging specialist Hannapak installed a HiPrint (not the HS model) earlier this year. While InlineFoiler Prindor is not available on the high-speed model yet, it is expected to be added as an option in the future.
While FitzGerald is careful to point out this is not a “niche product”, he agrees that for customers that don’t quite punch into the super long run arena, other iterations of the 700 might be a better fit.
“If you have a press doing 15,000sph or 18,000sph and your average run length is 10,000, [the speed difference] doesn’t matter. That job is on and off the press so fast the difference is only a couple of minutes. Even if you have a print run over 150,000, the difference is only an hour.
“Let’s not get caught up in the go faster stripes. What we are focused on is the best solutions for our customers – most affordable, best outcome,” he adds.
With so many variations on a theme in the B1 market, the 700 HiPrint HS has provided some fresh press firepower with more options for those powerful few in the upper end of the long-run world.
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